It is well known to atomize liquid metal by water jets impinging on a stream of the liquid metal in an atomizing vessel. This process results in the production of a mixture of water and metal powder consisting of say 10-30% by weight of metal powder. Although it is easy to separate the bulk of the water from the metal powder by a settling process, this produces a powder which contains 10-20% by weight water. Before the powder can be used this 10-20% of water has to be removed and it is known to put the wet powder into a centrifuge where the water content is reduced to say 3-4% by weight. Centrifuges are expensive machines both to purchase and also to operate.